


Rhythm n Blues

by apiphile



Category: The Used
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, bedtime story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jepha is sick and Dan ... sort of looks after him. Not very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rhythm n Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swear_jar](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=swear_jar).



> I wrote this into Y!M for swear_jar's bedtime story. I have no idea why I didn't call it "Drum n Bass", which would have been a much better and more accurate name.

Jepha passes a hand over his face. It's too fucking hot, but there's a chance that too fucking hot has now, in the face of broken air-con and dangerously sweaty club and the fail on the water front, become dangerously too fucking hot. He leans hard on the wall - which is also sweating, condensing airborne sweat from the crowd - and exhales very slowly in the hopes that this will magically hydrate him.

Quinn pushes a beer into his hand as he passes, and normally Jepha would appreciate the gesture (actually, normally Jepha would be totally thrown by the gesture because Quinn is about as good at sharing beer as Bert is at not sharing his bodily fluids) but right now beer won't do any good. He's definitely on the verge of getting sick and whatever this Czech shit is, it's not going to help.

"Holy shit," Jepha curses quietly to himself and tries to pry himself off the swamp of the wall. There's a clatter that sounds a little like it belongs in the middle of Sold My Soul and Dan comes down the corridor, drumming on the wall.

It's possible Jepha's never going to get how he wants to carry the fuck on drumming directly after pulling a two-hour set (the crowd here were too awesome to be ripped off with the time allotted them by the venue) but he's not about to look a gift drummer's stamina in the mouth, or however the saying goes.

He lifts his sweaty hair off his forehead and contemplates just ... sucking the fluid out of it or something ... and Dan turns, flips his sticks and plays a roll off Jepha's thigh without breaking his stride or his rhythm.

"Jepahreee Howard and the wall, four-evah," Dan says, tapping a steady _ta-ta, ta-ta_ on the wall right by Jepha's head. "Em Ay Kay Eye En Gee Oh You Tea --"

"Stop beating on my boyfriend," Jepha says, pushing his face against the wall and wishing temporarily that he were either dead or just not possessed of glands in this throat.

"You drinking that?" Dan bounces a stick off the beer and then, by way of Jepha's shoulder, back onto the wall. _Clink-thud-clack_.

"I'm wearing it," Jepha says, letting the bottle sway loosely from his hand. If Dan wants it, Dan can fucking have it. And yes, that applies to almost everything except the top spot on the MarioKart scoreboard, which Jepha is not giving up without a motherfucking fight.

Dan plays a cowbell short on the bottle and gives Jepha a searching look. Fuck him for not being drunk and fuck him for being concerned, Jepha thinks crankily. Fuck him for ... okay, it's stupid to be pissed but he's never liked that expression, that one that says that hey, maybe Dan Whitesides isn't just about the fucking and the video games and the dumb gags and the amazing drumming. Maybe there's more. Maybe there's something else in there. Fuck off.

"Will you be wearing it as a hat, Mr Howard? Or a--" _clink clink clink_, then a _thud_ as the stick bounces off Jepha's ass unexpectedly, "-- or as a buttplug? Perhaps Mr Howard intends to wear his beer as a fancy necklace?"

"Perhaps Mr Whitesides wants to fuck off," Jepha says to the wall, putting his hands over his face and leaving the beer to fall to the floor. There's a loud thud but it doesn't actually smash. There's sweat running into his eyes, and Jepha ... alright, he knows he's occasionally a hypochondriac but damn it he does not feel well.

The backing track of clacks, clinks, and Dan's breathing keeping time with his drumming stops abruptly and Dan says in rather loaded tones, "No, he doesn't."

Jepha finds his hands being tugged away from his face and a cool, if sweaty and rough, palm is placed over his forehead as a dull clack tells him both drumsticks are in the same hand now.

"You," Dan says in the same flat voice, "should drink something."

"I," Jepha says, batting ineffectually at Dan's massive hand - it does feel quite comforting on his forehead but the fact that it's cool to the touch after they've just been onstage pretty much confirms that Jepha's running a goddamn fever, "do not want beer."

Dan smacks him in the leg with both drumsticks at once. "BEEEEERT BEEEEERT BEEEEERT," he yells like a fucking siren, "BERT SOMEONE STOLEDED JEPHA AND REPLACED HIM WITH A SHITTY ROBOT CLONE."

"Robots can't be clones, asshole," Jepha says, giving up and leaving Dan's hand where it is. He tries to shove his cheek against the wall again; the bottle rolls up against his foot.

"I heard there was robot clone fuel in the bus fridge," Dan says, poking him twice with the end of one drumstick, right in the side. Jepha whines and tries to worm away without actually moving too much. "Want me to get it for your lazy sweaty ass?"

"You heard wrong," Jepha grunts. "You misheard. You shoulda heard _there is no tea on the bus because Quinn pissed in it_. Even now I am plotting my revenge."

He opens one eye. Dan is giving him that fucking look again. "Gasp, I have seen the light," Dan says, taking his hand off Jepha's head. "For until this moment Dan believe that you were flaking out sick. Now Dan know Jepha just deep in thinky thought."

He can hear Dan tapping his foot now. Figures. There aren't many times when Dan's not striking out a rhythm with some part of his body or other, dude even _ta-ta-ta—ta_s his fingers on Jepha's back when he's sleeping. It's stopped being distracting and started being like, now when it stops, it feels like something's missing.

Dan grabs Jepha's wrist and pulls. "Gee up gee up."

"If you even think about pony play I will kill you."

Dan raises both his eyebrows. "Pony what?"

It might just be easier, Jepha reflects, if he stops being pissy and follows Dan. So he does; even when he's keeping pace Dan doesn't let go his wrist and usually that's high sexy-times - and also usually he doesn't do it in corridors right after shows - but right now Jepha can't think about or with his balls, only his throat, and yet it's still kinda ... comforting. Like those long dark tired days when all that stood between them and going back home in defeat was Bert's stubborn, toe-stomping-on, screaming-tantrum-throwing refusal to give the fuck up.

His mind, Jepha realises, is definitely wandering.

Outside is sticky and disgusting and suddenly he's cold. He checked the goddamn temperature before they went in for that show and once he'd finished getting confused translating Celsius to Farenheit and shit, it's hot as Satan's asscrack tonight. Somehow his body didn't get that memo, and - Dan's hand around his wrist notwithstanding - he's shivering.

"Yep yep yep yep," Dan says, and Jepha can discern a rhythm in it, "definitely just thinking, yep, definitely. Definitely, definitely." He's saying it _duffenently_, and Jepha thinks he should recognise that voice, but his throat's prickling.

"Fuck youuuuu," Jepha growls, and immediately regrets it. Not the sentiment - he's shivering and sweating and his throat's sore and his vision's not exactly amazing and Jepha fucking hates being fussed over when he's sick - but the growling makes his throat feel even more fucking shitty.

He can't help a small pang of guilt as Dan drags him past a gaggle of sweaty, excited-and-nervous-looking girls clutching CDs and posters (they all have that look, the look where they might pee themselves at any moment, or burst into tears, like a cornered puppy that isn't sure what's happening) without stopping. Dan waves his drumsticks at them and mouths something, and the look of precarious hope on their faces just makes Jepha feel worse.

He's not sure he wants to get on the bus. The bus will be stuffy and horrible and smell like the inside of his head feels, there is no fucking water on the bus because his brilliantly intelligent band-mates had a water fight to cool off in freaking Prague and then the tank turned out to be empty and leaking and there is no water on the bus. On the other hand (which is sweating and pawing his hair out of his eyes again as Dan smacks the door open) it might be less cold in there.

It won't be, of course. Jepha shivers again as Dan bodily shoves him up the stairs. The cold doesn't exist. The bus thermometer says it's like eighty degrees out here.

Even if you're a lizard, that's warm.

The bus doesn't smell of anything when he gets past the driving seat; somewhere along the way his sense of smell has decided its vacationing elsewhere, somewhere less sick and sore. He doesn't blame it.

_Clatter-bang_. Dan's drumsticks hit something, and then both of Dan's giant hands are on his shoulders, guiding him past mounds of discarded clothing, broken kit, and tangles of Xbox wires; Jepha shuts his eyes and lets himself be led. This is easier.

Dan leaves him standing - swaying on a stationary bus - for a second and presses something into his hand. Jepha opens his eyes; it's a small orange tub of pills, half-empty, and on the side of the label in fresh black marker pen is the word **MAGIC** in Dan's unmistakable sloppy capitals.

"I need water," Jepha points out patiently. He can't actually see what's written on the tub under the marker, but he has a moderate amount of faith that Dan is not going to give him laxatives (because he isn't Quinn), or Bert's headpills, because Bert needs his headpills and Dan has enough self-preservation not to deprive him of them; fact remains that Jepha needs water if he's going to take the Magic pills.

Dan shrugs. "No water. Jeph stick head out of window, wait for rain."

As one they peer out of the skylight at the ten thouand million bajillion stars and the complete absence of clouds.

As his internal equilibrium begins to flop unhelpfully to the left, Jepha flings out an arm to catch himself against the bus wall and finds that, instead of a jarring up his arm as his body weight hits his wrist and his wrist hits the wall, there's Dan's arms in his armpits and he's hanging as limp as washed underwear on a line from some very strong drummer arms indeed.

"Well, fuck," Jepha says in a tiny, embarrassed voice.

"Jepha, he is broken," Dan says by his ear, low as a bass drum and quiet as an acoustic set inside a sandbag. "Dan fix."

He isn't really in any position to argue, dangling from Dan's biceps, shivering, with a pot of miscellaneous pills drooping in one hand and a cactus farm in his throat, but he'd love to know just what the fuck Dan thinks he's going to do to make him better. A rain dance? Voodoo? "Dan isn't magic," he croaks aloud, falling into Dan's ridiculous and occasionally annoying habit of referring to him by name.

"You fucker," Jepha manages, as Dan pushes his face up against Jepha's ear - it's uncomfortable, but warm, and despite feeling shitty and shivery and sick, Jepha doesn't want him to move.

"Reach back," Dan says, "back to the left, back to the left." He chants it like a mantra.

"What the fucking fu--" Jepha begins, but when he gets his finger around the neck of a bottle he stops and pulls his face back to look at Dan. "What?"

"Shitty flat crazy French soda," Dan explains. "Emergency soda."

Jepha grabs the soda - oh god the label's peeled off and it looks about a billion years old - and crawls with it back to the bunks, his recently-acquired Magic pills clasped in the same slippery palm.

"Dan fix," he acknowledges, sprawling over the lowest bunk - it's usually Dan's but there's no way he can fucking climb up to the middle - and battling valiantly with the screw top on the soda. "Dan magic, I guess."

"Only sometimes," Dan says with unexpected modesty. Jepha gets the horrible flat shitty soda into his mouth - it tastes disgusting, but it's liquid, even if it's too sweet and gross-tasting, and there's water in it somewhere and it's not actually beer. Jepha pops the cap on the pills, and sticks one in his mouth without looking. He is totally going to regret this later, but the important part is later.

Dan thumps down next to the bottom bunk and kind of half-wriggles into it next to him. Jepha contemplates shoving him back off again and explaining that he feels like an ass sandwich filled with ass made on ass bread in an ass factory by an ass worker, but by the time he's thought all that out he's swallowed the Magic pill and Dan's unbelievably long fingers are, just the two first ones, stroking down the length of Jepha's unshaven face like the sharp and spiky stubble is a sheet of glass.

"Mmmmnnnooo," Jepha mumbles half-heartedly.

"No?"

"...no no," Jepha says, aware that he's adding to the confusion rather than clearing it up.

"No no no, no no no," Dan agrees, his fingers inching up to rest over Jepha's unpleasantly dry lips. No no-no no... like that one hateful nineties dance song, what was it called...

Dan's fingers are rough and warm, like towels straight from the dryer, on Jepha's lips, heavy lead weights pushing very gently into the crack between upper and lower. Jepha breathes slowly through his nose and shuts his eyes again. Well, whatever. It's not so bad.

"No-no, no-no-no," Dan continues, bending his fingers just enough that the very tips push deeper into the gap, not so much prising or pushing Jepha's mouth open as letting their weight suggest the opening. Jepha swallows painfully and lets one of his own hands drift aimlessly down his shivering body to rest on his sternum. It's ... nice.

"Mmmm mmm mm," Jepha hums along, feeling Dan's fingers buzz against his skin; one of them finally dips in enough to touch his teeth and Jepha very, very slowly lets his aching jaw fall open a little further. Not much, just enough that his teeth - which may or may not be chattering - are far enough apart for, say, a couple of fingers to drop just as slowly into the tip of his tongue.

"Yep-yep, yep-yep-yep," Dan continues, sounding both serious and utterly fucking stupid at the same time. His fingers taste salty. The sweat, Jepha thinks, the sweat on his hands. He rubs his tongue along the pads of Dan's fingers, pushing them up against the roof of his mouth, and is rewarded with a, "Yep-yep-ye--fffff-p-yep."

Jepha registers that while his hand is resting on his sternum, his own fingers have stretched just enough to rub idly at the edge of his nipple through his shirt. The skin's tightening around the piercing, and what with Dan's fingers stretching his mouth open, his lips brushing hard skin and the roof of his mouth stroked like it's a dog's neck, he's starting to feel ... something besides the shivery flush of fever.

He doesn't stop moving his hand. Dan's other hand comes up to cup the far side of his face, holding him in place while he lazily, dazedly semi-sucks and mostly licks Dan's fingers; Dan's thumb rubs just above his snakebite and Jepha more or less swoons.

Not being much one for soul-searching he's never really figured out why he likes people touching his mouth, his lips so much, only that he does. Enough to rub his lips on upper arms when he's stoned and sleepy, enough that Dan's barely-there stroking on his lower lip chases Jepha's hand to rest directly on his own nipple and squeeze it. _Squeeze_ it.

Which makes his hips move, a very very little, towards the roof of the bunk, and settle deeper into the mattress. His spine's all wiggly. Or he's really fucking feverish and imagining it, but he feels like he has no bones. Just nerve endings and shivering that abates only where Dan's touching him. Fortunately, unfortunately, he's still composed enough, still proud enough, still vain enough right now not to whine "hold me" around Dan's fingers or any such shit. But he does pull at his nipple bar through the fabric of his shirt, and he does make a sound a little like the small death of a fish on a boat deck; _mmmmuph_.

"Mmm mmm, mmm-mmm, mmm-mmm-mmm," Dan hums, his face right by Jepha's ear. It's possible he's trying to be annoying; if Jepha weren't sick and horny and the other kind of fucking sick he'd probably be pissed, because that stupid song is going to be in his head for the rest of time (or until Bert knocks it out with some odiously catchy bullshit about spiders or whatever).

Jepha releases his nipple slowly and considers finding a way of saying "I don't care" which doesn't involve letting Dan's fingers slide out of his mouth or mustering the brain power to turn the vague _Screw You I'll Do What I Like You're Not My Real Dad_ feeling into actual words. Instead he keeps sucking Dan's fingers and rests his hand on his collarbones, stroking very vaguely at the spot just above the dip.

The thought hits him hard on the heels of that one and before he realises he's doing it the words kind of blurt and stumble into Dan's fingernails and make not one bit of sense; still rubbing his own throat, worming almost imperceptibly into the mattress, Jepha attempts the phrase, "What would you do if I called you 'Daddy' during sex?" and doesn't quite succeed.

"What?" Dan mutters, leaning his face so close to Jepha's mouth that even with his eyes shut Jepha can feel him hanging there. "What?"

"What would you do," Jepha repeats, and it comes out as _murmble murmble total nonsense_ again. Dan pulls his fingers out slowly - Jepha nearly whines in frustration, but his head chooses that minute to spin and he's kind of grateful for the additional air as much as he is bereft for the loss of Dan's fingers (the trail of saliva over his lower lip, the rope of it that breaks and falls wet and hot on his chin is something else).

"Again, what?" Dan mutters, his wet fingers drooping over Jepha's cheek. "What-what, what-what-what, what-what-wha--"

Jepha swallows -- there seems to be more saliva now -- and, still stroking mindlessly at the soft skin of his lower throat, just below his Adam's apple, repeats, "What would you do if I called you 'Daddy' during sex, I was just thinking, I didn't mean."

Dan makes a "hrm" sound. "Well, Jepha, I can't lie. I would probably..." he sounds seriously, and faintly censorious, and Jepha wishes he hadn't said anything, and he wishes Dan had just let him sleep instead of getting him all fucking ... worked up like this ... and he's still stroking his fucking throat, and Dan is still touching his fucking mouth. That doesn't help.

"What?" Jepha mumbles, and Dan's thumb smears spilled saliva over his lower lip like lipstick. Feels good.

"... I would probably turn you over my knee and spank you," Dan says thoughtfully, "for being disgusting."

"Disgusting?" Jepha echoes, his hand sliding further up his own neck until it is probably entirely fucking obvious what he's doing.

"Disgusting," Dan repeats, walking wet fingers down Jepha's neck, past his hand, and down to where his shirt buttons begin. "Impossible, too."

Jepha reaches out blindly in an attempt to pat Dan on his face and assure him that it was an entirely hypothetical question and that he will absolutely never call him Daddy during sex and could Dan please either let him pass out or fuck him until he passes out; Dan pinchers open the top button and, very briefly, kisses Jepha on the corner of his mouth.

"And," Dan says, opening the next button, "stupid, and - and-and, and-and-and ..." he opens a third button, his fingers resting in the dents in Jepha's breastbone. Jepha tightens his hand around his throat involuntarily. Dan's voice is pleasant and smooth on his ears, like, like - he realises that like-like-like, like-like is just that fucking song again. "And fucking hot," Dan adds, sliding his hand into the gaping hole he's just created in Jepha's shirt.

"Huh?" Jepha's head whirls again and he feels abruptly nauseous, which is almost immediately overtaken by feeling incredibly fucking turned-on as Dan's fingers brush over his other nipple, worrying at it as slow and as relentless as spring melting snow. He shivers, brushes sweat from his eyes with his free hand.

"You can call me anything," Dan assures him, fingers scraping back in a hard flick over Jepha's nipple.

"Can I," Jepha starts laughing, "can I call you Al?"

"Only," Dan says, repeating the movement, "If I can call you Benny."

And pow, the stupid nineties dance track is replaced by Paul Simon, like magic. At least, Jepha thinks it's Paul Simon. He also thinks he's a tool for knowing that, that song sucks, blows, and does dumps in the ears of everyone who hears it; his head is hurting and he can feel the sheets around him damp with his own sweat. Gross.

Dan's fingers circle Jepha's nipple like they're looking for something. Jepha loosens his grip on his own throat for long enough to breathe, aware that his judgement isn't quite so good as it might be right now.

"Are you gonna?" Dan asks, and either he's turned into an octopus or Jepha's lost track of where his hands are and what they're doing because now Dan's brushing the sweat-sticky hair from his forehead and kissing the spot his hair was in, but there's also a hand undoing his shirt buttons again, and there's one around his neck.

That one's his, Jepha reminds himself. _That's my hand_.

"Call me Al," Dan sings, undoing the last of Jepha's shirt buttons. Jepha tries to slap at his face and misses. "Call me Benny." He runs the palm of his hand over Jepha's cold-sweaty belly and Jepha arches up to the touch unthinking. "Call me, call me any tiiiiiime..."

Dan strokes Jepha's belly again, with the back of his hand, his fingers trailing shivery patterns in the sickness-sweat, leaving Jepha struggling for breath for a second. "You know." Dan's hand is palm-down again, the ends of his fingers probing just below Jepha's waistband.

"What?" says Jepha, who may well have known but is having enough difficulty following the conversation and whose throat is closing over like someone's squeezing it even though, even though his hand is now safely resting close to Dan's, heading south, aiming for his dick in some sort of masturbation race.

"Hoooooow," Dan drawls, his fingers caught in the scrubland where Jepha's pubes are beginning to grow back, slower than the rest of his body hair and more itchy by far, "mmmmmuuuuch ... is that doggy in the window."

"Woof woof," Jepha murmurs, and then, as Dan changes tactics and pushes the whole of his hand flat against Jepha's dick, over his pants, pushing the crotch seam into what's a pretty fully-fledged hard-on by now.

"Woof-woof, woof-woof-woof-woof?"

"NO ARGH OW," Jepha shouts, clutching at his head as the effort of yelling immediately makes him dizzy and achy. "Oh you fucking ... you fucking ... you ... fuck."

"Dan fuck," Dan agrees, then, shifting position again to squeeze Jepha's thigh, one of those friendly squeezes-in-passing, an interview-squeeze, "Jepha sick."

Jepha shrugs and tries to wave his hips at Dan's hand. _My dick is here. This is where your hand should be_.

"No fuck for sick Jepha," Dan says decisively. Jepha growls. "Jepha want fuck?" Dan asks, his hand somewhere between Jepha's thigh and his balls, a threat and a promise, not actually doing anything beyond driving him crazy.

"Jepha too tired for begging," Jepha grumbles.

"Jepha sick," Dan repeats, although he doesn't sound entirely convinced. "Jepha need rest."

"Daaaaaaan," Jepha complains. He has temporarily forgotten that ten minutes ago he was looking forwards to being unconscious and left in peace; his body feels like it's made of little gaping mouths or something. Also, he is swimming in his own sweat and he isn't sure if he's going to throw up, pass out, or come first.

Dan answers him by kissing him. It's a slow, steady, unremarkable kiss, but for the fact it's a kiss at all and normally Jepha's kind of used to them sort of fucking around and not actually getting into what he huffily thinks of as the unnecessarily romantic shit, like telling anyone else what's going on. Or acknowledging that he enjoys the moments when Dan's hand rests on his shoulder or his waist or his arm, like an anchor or a leash.

It's a fucking good kiss. For a moment Jepha forgets about Dan's hand and why it isn't where it should be, and just gets his fingers caught up in Dan's unwashed, lank-rank hair, his tongue tangled up with Dan's slightly beery, too-large tongue, his mouth filled up with foreign saliva, his head spinning and dropping out from under him like a rollercoaster ride.

"Tell you what," Dan says when he finally lets Jepha breathe again, and Jepha blinks, and on the third blink he doesn't bother opening his eyes again.

"Whaaat?"

There's a long pause, during which Dan shuffles onto the bed next to him properly, all arms and legs inside the furniture, and presses up against Jepha's side like some kind of draught-excluder for the half-undressed sickly bassist in need. They should sell those. Jepha concentrates on listening for an answer, and gets none; just a mild surprise as all the tangled up blankets come lumpy and fusty around him like an embrace, followed by an actual embrace as Dan drapes an arm over his chest, props the other one over the top of his head (that can't be comfortable for him), and locks his legs around Jepha's legs.

"Now," Dan says, blowing hot air over his face. "Shivery Shaky Sweaty Sickly-sick Jepharee Fever Howardinedooniedoo." His mouth touches Jepha's cheek with every vowel. "Keep warm. Get self off. Sleep."

"Yeah?" Jepha can't really summon the energy to be pissed at this. And anyway, it's a fucking order.

He likes orders.

"Yeah," Dan says, and there's a flap as the blankets come right up over both their heads. "Promise I'll watch."

"Promise," Jepha repeats, his hand in his pants but no real energy to actually move it much beyond a few swipes of his fingertips over hot, taut skin.

"That's what I'm here for," Dan says, as Jepha begins stumbling reluctantly towards sleep. "Watching you. Out. For you."


End file.
